Rockets at Hornets
James Harden's 30-point scoring streak is over, but the Houston Rockets are still winning. Harden and the Rockets will try to stretch their winning streak to three straight when they visit the Charlotte Hornets on Wednesday.
Harden moved into second-place on the all-time list with 32 straight games of 30 or more points but failed to make it even halfway to Wilt Chamberlain's record of 65 in a row when he was held to 28 points in Monday's 119-111 home win over the Atlanta Hawks. "It was cool," Harden told reporters of the streak. "I knew I wasn't going to get to No. 1." The Hornets are trying to remain in the top eight of the Eastern Conference but are struggling to take advantage of a stretch of home games coming out of the All-Star break. Charlotte knocked off Washington in its first game after the break on Friday but fell to Brooklyn and Golden State in the next two contests, dropping it to 20-11 at home and into eighth place in the East.
TV: 7 p.m. ET, AT&T SportsNet Southwest (Houston), FS Southeast (Charlotte)
ABOUT THE ROCKETS (35-25): Houston, which knocked off Golden State with Harden sitting out on Saturday, is rounding into form from a health perspective and had nine players log at least 13 minutes on Monday, including newcomer Iman Shumpert. "I don't care. We won," Harden told reporters of his streak ending. "Made shots, missed shots, we won the game. That streak was great, but I was just doing it because that's what we had to do in order to keep our heads above water. Now, we get our full roster back. You look at the stat line, and we had multiple guys in double figures, which is great to see. Hopefully, we can keep that up." Harden went 7-of-21 from the floor on Monday and 0-of-10 from 3-point range.
ABOUT THE HORNETS (28-32): Charlotte, which plays at Brooklyn on Friday before returning home for three more, failed to take advantage of a big night on Monday from center Cody Zeller, who scored a career-high 28 points on 13-of-14 shooting and grabbed nine rebounds in the 121-110 loss to the Warriors. "I thought Cody was great," Hornets coach James Borrego told reporters. "He's just battling, playing so hard. Creating offense, battling defensively. He's done this two nights in a row. I thought last game was maybe his best game of the season. I think he followed it up with another impressive performance. Warrior. He's battling, competing, gave us a chance tonight. So, a fantastic job by Cody." Zeller recorded a double-double with 13 points and 11 rebounds in Saturday's 117-115 loss to the Nets.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Rockets PF Kenneth Faried recorded a double-double in 10 of 15 games since joining the team.
2. Hornets SG Malik Monk totaled six points on 1-of-10 shooting in the last three games.
3. Houston is enjoying a four-game winning streak in the series.